Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Follow the Money

These wares include high-capacity magazines similar to those used in the Arizona shooting spree that enabled the accused assailant to kill six people and wound 14 others — including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — by rapidly firing a fusillade of shots without pausing to reload.Over the last two decades, MidwayUSA has done just about everything to help the National Rifle Association flourish financially

12 comments:

In 1992 MidwayUSA developed a fundraising tactic to boost the NRA’s fortunes, dubbed “Round-Up,” that has yielded $5.7 million for the NRA’s lobbying operations. The MidwayUSA money drive asks customers to “round up” the total of each order to the nearest dollar or higher. Then the company donates the difference to the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, a lobbying arm of the gun rights group.

So when you follow the money it turns out the 5.7 million dollars is broken into 50cent or less increments spread out over nearly 20 years by possibly millions of grass roots supporters. I don’t think that is what you hoped to find when you “followed the money.”

They asked for penny donations from buyers of their product and they raised millions. This is like you saying the IRS funds presidential campaigns because millions of people checked the box to donate $2 of their refund.

Really? Follow the money? Is that why politicians do what they do? AARP, NRA, and AIPAC. The three biggest PAC's in American politics. The now famous phrase by Bob Woodward during his Watergate investigation is the core of everything that is wrong with American democracy. As an anti-imperialist political scientist, I see the NRA as another unfortunate offspring of the military industrial congressional complex.

The phrase “follow the money” intends to find a path leads to a single major source. In this case, when you follow the money, you reach a dead end- or rather millions of tiny little branches. When you follow one of them, you find that Joe Smith from Little Rock, Arkansas donated $0.56 back in 1998 because he elected to pay an even $31 for his order from MidwayUSA instead of $30.44 with the difference going to the NRA-ILA. Sorry, but you didn’t find David Koch.

Jade: “are you saying gunloons aren't bright enough to understand they can stick money in an envelope and send it to the NRA?”

Donations get made that way too, and they can be made through MidwayUSA because they set up an easy means to make penny donations off a transaction. Yes, Midway has an interest in protecting the second amendment, and they recognize that their customers share that interest. So now the mere asking of a donation is your example of “big bad corporate interests”? That is a bit different than your initial claim.

Jade: “And are you seriously suggesting Midway doesn't incur any costs to collect the roundups?”

I didn’t suggest that. Midway eats the administrative costs of running the program, as they should. So that’s you example of “big bad corporate interests”? Administrative costs incurred while collection millions of dollars from grass roots supporters proves how the NRA is largely funded by the firearms industry. Be sure to watch where you are going as you back peddle so fast.

Columbia, MO., May 18,2008 -MidwayUSA, a catalog and Internet retailer and wholesaler with JUST ABOUT EVERTHINGSM for Shooting, Reloading and Gunsmithing, presented a $4 million check to the National Rifle Association at the Annual Meetings in Louisville, KY, on behalf of their NRA "Round-Up" Customers.The $4 million donation represents the total amount raised through MidwayUSA's NRA "Round-Up" program since its inception in 1992.Every MidwayUSA Customer, when placing an order by phone, mail or over internet has the opportunity to "Round-Up" the total of their purchase to the next highest dollar. These "Round-Up" donations are sent to the NRA and placed in the NRA/ILA National Endowment for the Protection of the 2nd Amendment every week, with no administrative or holding charges assessed.The NRA/ILA only uses the interest gained to help fund programs, allowing the Endowment to continually grow each year.